Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu
Land Claims Report for January 2014
1. Offer from Crown to fully and finally extinguish Ngāti Kahu’s claims
2. Work on publication of the Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement continues
3. Judicial Review of the Waitangi Tribunal’s Report – on-going
4. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board Taking Legal Action Against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd
5. Appeal to the Supreme Court on Te Ana o Taite – on-going
6. National Iwi Chairs’ Forum 4-5 February, Copthorne Hotel, Waitangi
Summary:
We still need to consider the preliminary and largely estimated commercial assessment of the Crown’s offer that was completed for us. We will do this in our upcoming hui on 1 February. We will also consider the tabled resolution that the offer be rejected.
Work on preparing our Deed of Partial Settlement for publication is progressing well. Comment received on the hapū korero chapters has been included. The remaining chapters are being edited to make them more readable.
The application to the High Court for a judicial review of the Waitangi Tribunal’s refusal to issue binding recommendations or to review the deeds of settlement of Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa and Ngāi Takoto is being prepared.
The Ngāti Kahu Trust Board is still continuing with its action in the High Court against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd.
We have had a preliminary meeting with the new owners of Carrington Farms. We asked them not to interfere with the wāhi tapu, particularly the sand dunes and Te Ana o Taite. We met again with them on 28 January and I will report at the hui-a-marama on that meeting.
The National Iwi Chairs’ Forum hui at Waitangi will be held in the Copthorne Hotel on 4 and 5 February.
1. Offer from Crown to fully and finally extinguish Ngāti Kahu’s claims
At our last Rūnanga hui we went back over the Crown’s offer. However we did not get all the way through it before people decided they didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Two claimants tabled a motion that the offer be rejected. That motion will be discussed at our hui on 1 February.
Because we did not get through the offer in the hui, we did not get to discuss the commercial analysis we had prepared. As such it will also be discussed on 1 February.
2. Work on publication of the Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement continues
Thank you to everyone who sent in changes to be made to the hapū kōrero. Those have now all been included. There is still work to be done on Te Paatu’s hapū kōrero in general and on a couple of hapū in particular and we will be working on that in the coming month.
I have also been editing the two chapters on our definition and experiences of the English Crown and the history of how they stole almost all of our lands. In editing the history I translated a lot of the Crown terms adopted by the Waitangi Tribunal into everyday English in order to make it more readable. If people are interested in reading (and commenting) on these at this stage – or any of the redrafted chapters – please let me or the office know and we’ll get copies to you. The chapters completed and redrafted thus far are
(1) Introduction,
(2) Te Haerenga Mai o Ngā Tūpuna (from the book Te Whānau Moana),
(3) the hapū kōrero,
(4) Wētahi Tikanga Whakaaro nō Ngāti Kahu (our kaupapa and tikanga),
(5) the relationship between Ngāti Kahu and the Crown,
(6) the history of the Crown’s crimes against Ngāti Kahu.
I still have two major chapters to edit including our Yellow Book (which will be summarized) and the detail of what is to be included in the partial settlement.
3. Judicial Review of the Waitangi Tribunal’s Report – on-going
The application to the High Court for a judicial review of the Waitangi Tribunal’s refusal to issue binding recommendations or to review the deeds of settlement of Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa and Ngāi Takoto is still being prepared. It does not help our case that the Tribunal has also refused to make binding recommendations for the Mangatū Incorporation.
4. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board Taking Legal Action Against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services
The Ngāti Kahu Trust Board is still continuing with its action in the High Court against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd seeking to have the large debt it owes written off.
Just a reminder, the High Court has set down a hearing date for this matter for 17, 18 and 19 February 2014 in the High Court in Whāngārei.
5. Application to the Supreme Court on Te Ana o Taite
In the week before Christmas we had a preliminary meeting with the new owners of Carrington Farms, Shanghai CRED Real Estate Ltd. The new owners are Chinese and appear to have a much greater appreciation of the need not to interfere with burial grounds than the previous owner. This is mainly because Chinese culture is similar in many ways to Māori culture. They are also anxious to settle the matter out of court. Our main objective is to protect Te Ana o Taite and all the other wāhi tapu on the property and to ensure that there is no building or any other development or interference with them.
We are meeting with the new owners again at the end of January and will report on the meeting at our hui on 1 February.
6. National Iwi Chairs’ Forum 4-5 February, Copthorne Hotel, Waitangi
Ngāti Whātua, with assistance from Ngāpuhi, will be hosting this year’s Taitokerau hui of National Iwi Chairs’ Forum. First up on the first day the Forum will consider the issue of who is entitled to sit at the table at the Forum. Disputes have arisen about various chairs who have appeared at the table who are hapū rather than iwi chairs. They include hapū from Taranaki/Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui and Te Taitokerau. I have indicated to some iwi chairs that in Te Taitokerau, Ngāti Kahu does support Ngāti Hine being at the table (Ngāpuhi does not).
For the rest of the first day, reports of the nine working groups (Iwi Leaders’ Groups) of the Forum will be discussed. They are listed on the agenda in the following order: Fresh Water, Whānau Ora, Climate Change, Oil and Minerals, Iwi Collective, E Tū Whānau, Mātauranga, Housing and Constitutional Transformation. Moana Jackson will deliver a very preliminary report indicating what whānau, hapū and iwi throughout the country consider a new constitution for the country should look like.
On the second day topics covered will be insurance, tax exemptions, te reo strategies and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Prime Minister and cabinet will attend in the afternoon.
Professor Margaret Mutu
27 January 2014